Dashing, Treacherous, and Dense
by GordyGordiant
Summary: Snippets from the daily lives of a Master head over heels in love and a certain knight who's too blockheaded to notice
1. Summoning

Gudao sighs as the light from the summoning circle fades, leaving behind a familiar set of blades.

"Rejoice, senpai," Mashu murmurs from beside him.

"Huh?" he says, turning to her.

"Ah, I'm sorry. For some reason I just felt compelled to say it."

"Well, in any case," says Gudao as he bends down to retrieve the Black Keys, "there's not much to rejoice for here. What is this, our fifth set?"

"Fifteenth, senpai."

"Oh." Gudao clicks his tongue. "Seriously?"

Mashu nods.

Gudao sighs again, rubbing the back of his head. "Well, I've got enough quartz for one more summoning. Shall we?"

"Should we wait until da Vinci comes back from her workshop?"

"Ah, I think we'll be fine. It's not like any of those botched summonings that she's warned us about have ever happened."

"W-well, I suppose..."

Removing the Black Keys, Gudao arranges his last three quartz within the summoning circle and stands back while Mashu mans the console.

"Ready, senpai?"

"Just a sec."

Gudao closes his eyes. With it only being a matter of time until the second Singularity was located, he had been spending all the saint quartz Chaldea had in store in the hopes of summoning more Servants. Before, he had been so enamored with the power of these heroes that he had vastly underestimated their enemies and summoned barely enough Servants to form a full team for Orleans. Gudao shuddered upon remembering the sights of his fatigued and injured Servants, having to face yet more opponents with little time to recover from the last battle, and their victory by a thread over Jeanne Alter.

He had been fortunate to lose no one, but he wouldn't test his luck a second time.

So despite all the failures he's had, he hopes that this time will be different. He reaches out in his mind to whatever forces that guide this process and murmurs a simple plea:

" _May I be fortunate enough to meet those who will save the world._ "

Certainly nothing special, just like the Master who says it. And yet a boy who is nothing special, with no magic gifts or ancestry to speak of, has found himself leading the battle to save all.

Gudao opens his eyes. He turns and nods to Mashu. Without hesitation, she throws the switch.

And so, as the quartz fade into motes of light, spinning faster and faster around the summoning circle, this boy who has nothing else offers all he has.

*

She hears with ears she doesn't have. Then she listens to make sure she heard right.

Pausing for a second, she breaks into a short laugh, feeling a wide, toothy grin where her mouth should be.

"Another dumbass like me, huh?" she says approvingly. "Okay, I'll bite. Someone like that'll need all the help he can get."

In response, she sees a light appear with eyes that aren't there. She reaches out to it confidently with a hand that she can't see, and makes a pleased hum as a gauntlet of silver and crimson begins to form.

*

Gudao didn't know whether to shout in joy or terror.

On the one hand, the rainbow glow that had enveloped the quartz was something he had never seen before, and when it was accompanied by surging levels of energy even higher than any of his other Servants' summonings, he was almost certain that his plea had been answered.

On the other hand, this same energy was shaking the Summoning Chamber violently, and Gudao wouldn't be surprised if it brought the roof down on him.

"Senpai!" Mashu has to yell over the deafening roar. "I'm going to shut it down!"

"No! We can do this!" he shouts in reply, shielding his eyes but never tearing his gaze from the blinding light that has enveloped the summoning circle.

The light shoots upward to form a pillar, the calling card of a Servant. Sure enough, Gudao begins to discern a silhouette within.

Unfortunately, this means he does not notice as above, the violent shaking dislodges a support pillar from the roof, sending it down straight on top of him.

"Senpai! Look out!"

Finally tearing his eyes from the spectacle of the summoning circle, Gudao turns to see his shielder, shifted into her battle attire, lunging to protect him with her class's namesake in hand. Her eyes are not fixed on him, however, but a point above his head. Following her gaze, he notices at last the danger quite literally bearing down on him. Unfortunately, it's too late for him to dodge. Even Mashu, with her demi-servant abilities, won't be able to intercept in time.

As humanity's last Master comes face to face with his impending demise, his reaction is one that would surprise many when considering his occupation of such a station.

That is to say, he falls flat on his ass, shields his head, squeezes his eyes shut, and screams like a girl.

A flash of red light overpowers the blinding white, and a sound like lightning crackling fills the room. A rush of air blows past Gudao, and a powerful boom resounds directly overhead. He flinches, thinking it to be the sound of his death.

When he realizes that his senses still work, he notices that the blinding light attempting to pry past his eyelids has faded, as has the sound of rushing air. The chamber is as silent as it had been before the summoning, and for a moment, Gudao wonders if he had only imagined the ordeal of the previous minute.

Hesitantly, he opens his eyes, and soon discards any disbelief he might have had towards the chaos of the summoning, instead directing it towards what that summoning has wrought.

Gudao looks up to see a knight clad in heavy armor gleaming silver and crimson, a sword of similar color scheme held in one hand. His expression is impossible to read, for it is concealed behind a horned helmet. The only hints of anything human are twin sparkles of green peering out from the eye slots of the otherwise immovable faceplate.

The knight exudes an aura of royalty so overpowering that, if Gudao had been standing, he no doubt would have knelt or even prostrated himself before him, his role as Master notwithstanding. Such latent charisma could have only meant that the Servant before him was a great prince, if not a king. And yet, the imposing nature of his armor and weapon reminded him that this knight was a warrior of legend; perhaps one who had earned much glory, but certainly one who had done so through great bloodshed. His captivation with the knight's appearance ends abruptly, however, for a voice rumbles to life within the helmet.

"I see," says the knight.

Suddenly, with a click, the knight's helmet separates into pieces. Driven by some unknown mechanism, the fragments slide off the knight's head and into a compact configuration along his lower back.

But Gudao is not concerned with the workings of the knight's helmet, focusing instead on his newly revealed appearance.

And the first thing he notices is that "he" is actually a "she".

Once shrouded in the darkness of her helmet, the knight's eyes are like emeralds brought to sparkle in the light of day. They are framed by messy locks of blonde hair, kept loosely in check by a high ponytail and two braids running along the side of her head. Her fair skin glowed softly in the light of the Summoning Chamber, and as the regally stern expression of that surprisingly young, feminine face centered itself on him, Gudao was dumbstruck by the sheer beauty of this hero. Her perfection made her seem more like a painting come to life than an actual human being. This was truly a Servant, a living legend who was every bit as unreachable standing before him as she was in whatever medium her tale had been recorded in.

But before he can even think of something to say, she dashes his expectations yet again, for the knight could only maintain her stoic countenance for so long. With a twinkle in her eye, her expression transforms from one so picturesque into another that is no less beautiful, but far more human, and certainly quite cute: her trademark toothy grin.

"Yo!" she says at last, her voice ringing loudly. "Name's Mordred. Mordred Pendragon." Carelessly, she swings her large sword up effortlessly to rest it on her shoulder, placing her free hand on her armored hip. "You my Master?" she asks casually.

But he does not respond to her. As a matter of fact, he does not respond to anything for a while, whether it be her expression slowly twisting with confusion, or Mashu glancing nervously between the two, or the support column that would have killed him raining rubble from its newfound place embedded into the wall, a bootprint clearly visible on its center.

For seeing Mordred's smile, beaming with confidence and almost juvenile excitement, brings forth feelings that he has felt for only one person before. His mind flashes back to the hot summer days of his childhood, and in particular to the dirt-stained face of a certain fiery-haired, fiery-tempered girl, flashing a smile all too similar to the one Mordred is presenting him with now.

And once he realizes that the sudden heat rising to his face comes from the same source that made his first friend his first crush, his heart sinks even as it begins to beat wildly out of control.

For now Ritsuka "Gudao" Fujimaru understands why the legendary "son" of King Arthur is responsible for his sudden surge of puppy love:

 _I forgot I had a thing for tomboys._

\--

 _A/N: Hey y'all, first fanfic here. Sorry to drop such a lengthy intro chapter into what's supposed to be a series of "short snippets". I'll try to keep it more in line with what the description promises from now on, but we'll see. For any of you readers with a degree in Nasuology, I apologize if I broke any laws of the Fateverse and continue to do so in the future._

 _Feel free to leave feedback_ _, I'm kinda just doing my own thing right now and I'd love any advice you could give_!


	2. Complicated

Leaning back in his chair, Gudao sighs as he reflected on the past few weeks that Mordred had been in Chaldea.

She was certainly his most powerful Servant yet, something she'd had ample opportunity to demonstrate in the Septem Singularity. Wyverns, golems, other Servants, and even a demonic pillar. None could stand in her way once the Knight of Treachery was on a warpath.

On the other hand-

Gudao flinches as he hears the door to his room slide open unannounced. He turns to see the only Servant in Chaldea that doesn't knock before entering, clad in a white tube top and jean shorts, and grinning from ear to ear with her hands on her hips.

"Guda!" Mordred yells. "Supply run! Let's go!"

- _shouldn't_ _this hero_ _have more restraint?_

"Yeah, yeah, got it." Gudao groans as he gets up.

"Oi, what's up with you? You sound like an old geezer."

"You wouldn't understand, Mo-san," he complains as he exits the room, the two beginning to walk down the hallway. "Someone's gotta do all the paperwork for all the deployments we do."

The relationship between the two was complicated, to say the least. A good deal of it was due to the way Mordred insisted that she be treated as a man. He was willing to oblige her, especially after she almost took his head off back when she was first summoned and figured out the reason behind his dumbfounded expression, like he wasn't supposed to be surprised about her gender.

After that, though, he found her rather easy to get along with. Despite hailing from a legend of knightly origin, she was rather rowdy and boisterous. Mordred behaved quite a bit like the guys Gudao used to be friends with in high school, what with how often she insisted on dragging him around on little "adventures" in Chaldea, slacking off in his room, reading his manga while snacking on junk food pilfered from the mess hall, and the like. While sometimes he felt annoyed that he had to be the more responsible one of the pair ("Aren't you supposed to be a knight?"), if he could think of her as "one of the guys", then he didn't really mind.

Not that it was the easiest thing to do.

Mordred laughs loudly at something Gudao says, and he casts a sidelong glance at her. The way her eyes squeeze almost shut with mirth, how her ponytail bounces slightly as her frame shakes with laughter, and that fang-like tooth that appears when she smiles that widely...

Gudao shudders to think of the beating in store for him if Mordred ever found out how cute he thought she was.

"Nah, nah, you shoulda known there's no way that gorilla coulda done well in the kitchen! Back in Camelot, Father let him try his hand at working with the cooks for a feast one time, and man, did that end poorly. The noble we had for a guest thought we were trying to poison him!" She laughs as if being accused of attempted assassination was just something you learned to joke about in those times.

"Please don't call Gawain a gorilla, Mo-san," Gudao sighs, "but, yeah, I probably should've known the moment I found the sugar next to the pepper instead of salt."

She grins but doesn't respond for a bit. The hallway echoes only with the sound of their footsteps before Mordred speaks again.

"Did he, uh, say anything about me today? Anything new?"

Gudao's expression doesn't change, but he feels his heart sink a bit.

Even in a battle to save humanity, there are some things that can't be forgotten overnight.

"He, uh, hasn't, no. Sorry."

"...'mkay."

She'd never said anything to him directly, her haughty pride keeping her from sharing those kinds of things with anyone. But the way she's been avoiding Gawain ever since he was summoned a few days ago, or the hint of sadness in her eyes as he walks right past her when they do run into each other, or how the usual hothead simply lets it happen, tells Gudao all he needs to know.

Not that he needed any proof that she regretted what she had done. If there was one thing the "prince" of Camelot had taught him, it was that the legends didn't always tell the whole story.

"I'm sure he'll come around, Mo-san." Gudao says awkwardly. He doesn't want to say anything more, afraid of encroaching upon something that wasn't his business.

It takes only a fraction of a second, but Mordred replies with, "Ah, it's okay. He's as smart as a gorilla anyways, so I can understand if he's still got some hard feelings. Ain't no skin off my nose!"

Her answer sounds confident, but for someone like Mordred, who's so quick to fire a response the instant someone's words leave their lips, a millisecond's pause is more than enough cause for further investigation.

So Gudao investigates, turning his head fully left to get a better look at Mordred. Her face has already composed itself in its usual expression, but the slight slump in her shoulders tells him all he needs to know.

And that knowledge makes him feel strange, like he swallowed a brick. It's sitting there now, in his gut, and it's getting heavier. It's uncomfortable, even starting to hurt, and he wants to spit it up. So he opens his mouth.

"Mo-san, Gawain has only been here a few days, and he hasn't fought alongside us in any major singularity. He has no idea how hard you've been working to save mankind.

I didn't exist when Camelot did, so I can never hope to understand the depths of what he's gone through, or what you have for that matter. All I have to go off of is what I've seen here in Chaldea."

The more the words spill out of him, the lighter that brick feels.

"And do you know what I've seen? A brave, selfless knight who isn't afraid to throw himself up against impossible odds. Someone who's gone up against the most terrifying monsters to ever exist with nothing but a sword and a smile. Yeah, he's headstrong and brash, with a temper that could send a rodeo bull running for the stands, but I've never met someone who lives up to the code of chivalry more than him."

He puts a hand on her shoulder without thinking.

"So, Mordred, please believe me when I tell you Gawain'll come around. Because if he's worth half the respect you have for him, I swear that he'll be able to see you for what you really are: a Knight of the Round Table."

She looks at the hand on her shoulder, then into his eyes. Her face is blank for a few moments as she processes what he's saying.

Then she grins widely, her eyes actually squeezing shut out of glee.

"Yeah!" she says. "You're right! Ain't nothin' to worry about, he'll see eventually!"

Upon seeing her smile, the weight in Gudao's stomach vanishes, replaced with a fluttery sensation. The familiar feeling of heat rises in his cheeks, but he doesn't feel embarrassed. It's just his body's unconscious reaction to the girl he likes, and his mind is focused instead on the newfound bit of happiness he's managed to bring her.

With a huff and a rare bit of pride, Gudao cracks a wide smile of his own when he sees that he's managed to cheer her up.

Unfortunately, however, by getting caught up in the moment, he's temporarily made unaware of his surroundings. And in a classic instance of wrong place, wrong time, it was during this moment that from around a corner, Fou rushed towards the still-walking duo with the hope of receiving some petting from Gudao.

Upon seeing that Gudao hasn't slowed down, Fou attempts to backpedal to avoid being trampled. But his excitement to get close to the Master has worked against him, and the creature's tiny legs can't hope to outrun the human's longer ones.

So the next thing Gudao is aware of is a tiny yelp and his shin colliding soft, and then he's falling. Startled, he tumbles forward, his balance lost.

Instead of having a face first collision with the ground, however, he feels Mordred grab his left hand, causing him to swing from his left arm like a pendulum. As he turns over, her right arm wraps around the small of his back, thankfully halting his momentum.

It also leaves her holding him in that classic "sweep you off your feet" pose, as if the two were dancing tango with the roles reversed.

Having had to move so quick, Mordred had focused entirely on catching Gudao, meaning other aspects of control over herself had waned. This included her check on her charisma.

So, as she leans over him, golden hair falling in her vibrant emerald eyes, a handsome smile crossing her face, she asks, "You okay?" in a voice unconssciously huskier than before.

The whole situation makes the temperature in Gudao's face approach that of the sun, and he groans into his free hand.

Surely there couldn't exist a person who could be so cute and yet so dashing. The fact that there was only further confirmed to Gudao that Mordred Pendragon was, in fact, complicated.

"Soooo? What do you think?"

Gawain frowns as he watches the two fooling around. "They could stand to be a little more serious."

"Not that, dummy! Although, they do look good pretty good together... hehe."

"Wipe your drool."

"Ah, sorry. Wait, no! Tell me what you think about Mo-chan!"

His expression remains stony. "Well, while I do have good faith in Master Fujimaru's judgment and character, he's also right in saying that it's too early for me to tell. Sir Mordred has earned my trust once before, and it did not end well."

"So you'll talk to her then? Or at least act like she exists?"

"Unfortunately, my feelings on the matter are still a bit fresh, so that might be a while yet. However, for Master Fujimaru's sake, I will do my best to remain as impartial as I can towards Sir Mordred."

"...tsundere."

"Excuse me?"

"Well, it'll do I guess. Now, if you'll excuse me, I got a Rayshift to get ready for!"

"Are you sure you wouldn't like me to accompany you this time?"

"Nah, it's nothing big, just a supply run. And besides, the kitchen needs all the help it can get."

Gawain smiles sincerely. "Very well then, Master. I will go where I'm needed."

"You do that!" she says as she runs off towards the Rayshift chamber, smiling mischievously as she blows a lock of fiery orange hair out of her face.


End file.
